Page:Isabella d'Este, marchioness of Mantua, 1474-1539 volume 1 (1905).djvu/15

Rh artists in her employment the most elaborate and minute instructions. Braghirolli counted as many as forty letters on the subject of a single picture painted by Giovanni Bellini, and no less than fifty-three on a painting entrusted to Perugino. Especial attention has been devoted to this portion of Isabella's correspondence in the present work. The vast number of letters which passed between her and the chief artists of the day have hitherto lain buried in foreign archives or hidden in pamphlets and periodicals, many of them already out of print. All these have been carefully collected, and are for the first time brought together here.

If Isabella was a fastidious and at times a severe critic, she was also a generous and kindly patron, prompt to recognise true merit and stimulate creative effort, and ever ready to befriend struggling artists. And poets and painters alike gave her freely of their best. Castiglione and Niccolo da Correggio, Bembo and Bibbiena, were among her constant correspondents. Aldo Manuzio printed Virgils and Petrarchs for her use, Lorenzo da Pavia made her musical instruments of unrivalled beauty and sweetness. The works of Mantegna and Costa, of Giovanni Bellini and Michelangelo, of Perugino and Correggio, adorned her rooms. Giovanni Santi, Andrea Mantegna, Francesco Francia, and Lorenzo Costa all in turn painted portraits of her, which have alas! perished. But her beautiful features still live in Leonardo's perfect drawing, in Cristoforo's medal, and in Titian's great picture at Vienna. Nor were poets and prose-writers remiss in paying her their homage. Paolo Giovio addressed her as the rarest of women; Bembo and Trissino celebrated her charms